Prelude to World War II

A condensed, point-by-point summary of the module, for reviewing right before a test or exam.

1. Japan's Fragile Interwar Democracy and the Rise of Militarism. Japan's brief 'Taishō democracy' collapsed under economic crisis and institutional weakness, opening the way to army rule.
2. Kokutai Ideology and the Zaibatsu War Economy. State ideology built on the emperor's divinity, and family-run conglomerates that armed the nation, powered Japan's drive to war.
3. The Manchurian Incident and the Second Sino-Japanese War. The 1931 Mukden Incident and Manchukuo set a precedent of unpunished aggression that led to full-scale war with China in 1937.
4. War Crimes, the Co-Prosperity Sphere, and Japan's Path to Pearl Harbor and Defeat. Wartime atrocities, Axis alignment, and the U.S. oil embargo drove Japan to Pearl Harbor, lightning conquest, and final defeat.
5. The Second Spanish Republic and the Road to Civil War. Reform, backlash, and mounting political violence between 1931 and 1936 fractured Spain before the army revolted.
6. The Military Uprising, Social Revolution, and Repression in Both Zones. The failed July 1936 coup split Spain into a revolutionary republican zone and a systematically repressive rebel zone.
7. Foreign Intervention: Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and Non-Intervention. Fascist and Soviet intervention, met by Western non-intervention, internationalized the Spanish war and shaped its outcome.
8. The End of the War and Spain as 'General Rehearsal' for World War II. Franco's 1939 victory, won at enormous human cost, is remembered as a rehearsal for the global war that followed.